ABSTRACT
The sedate, static Universe of the ancient Greeks, consisting of planets and stars stretching out to just beyond the orbit of Saturn, has been replaced by a violent, dynamic Universe extending out to an unimaginable distance of 10000 million light years. The broad characteristics of the observable Universe as far as its outermost limits have been established, enabling a serious attack to be made on the great question of the origin and evolution of the Universe. The big bang theory of the origin and evolution of the Universe is the one that has current general acceptance, but it does have some major problems, which have been outlined and which will be reviewed again. The Universe had to appear in an instantaneous flash; there had to be a creation out of nothing. But we live in a Universe composed of matter, which implies some breakdown of symmetry in the very early Universe.
